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SUGGESTED  CAPTION  FOR  PHOTO:
Wauconda Township residents Hilde Lichter and Jay Glenn show their disapproval of a proposed 15,000-seat Olympic stadium in Lakewood Forest Preserve.  They are members of Voters For Preservation, which passed out information prior to a Chicago 2016 Committee presentation to the Lake County Board of Commissioners in Waukegan Tuesday.
 
Voters For Preservation, a local environmental-education group, was outside the Lake County Building early Tuesday morning making its case for keeping a proposed 300-acre Olympic equestrian venue out of a local forest preserve.
 
Group members distributed materials regarding the plan by the Lake County Forest Preserve District Board to build a 15,000-seat Olympic equestrian stadium, plus other buildings, parking lots, etc., within the boundaries of Lakewood Forest Preserve near Wauconda, should Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics be accepted.
 
VFP group members then attended the Board of Commissioners meeting, where they, along with other citizens, were given three minutes each to comment on the Olympics-in-Lakewood issue.  Patrick Ryan and Doug Arnot of Chicago 2016 gave a video presentation and then answered questions posed by commissioners.
 
"The purpose of our being there was to make the commissioners and others aware of the many downsides of such a major construction project in a forest preserve," according to a VFP spokesman.  "Not only is the Olympic plan for Lakewood environmentally unfeasible, but we also believe the board is acting in a manner inconsistent with the wishes of taxpayers who voted to set aside land for preservation -- not development," said the spokesman.